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BENEFITS 



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OF THE 



SABBATH. 






BY 



REV. HENRY A.'"NELSON, 



ft 



PHILADELPHIA : 

Presbyterian Publication Committee, 

1334 CHESTNUT STREET. 
NEW YORK: A. D. F. RANDOLPH, 770 BROADWAY. 







BENEFITS 



OF THE 



SABBATH. 



Rev. HENRY A. NELSON, D.D. 



■ 

PHILADELPHIA : 
PRESBYTERIAN PUBLICATION COMMITTEE, 

1334 CHESTNUT STREET. 
A. D. F. RANDOLPH, 770 BROADWAY, N. Y. 



-$\/ 



its 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by 

WM. L. HILDEBURN, Treasurer, 

in trust for the 

PRESBYTERIAN PUBLICATION COMMITTEE, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District 
of Pennsylvania. 

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Westcott & Thomson, 
Stereotypers, Philada. 



BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 



TJSJE DAY OF KEST, 



The privilege of simply ceasing from labor, 
and resting, every seventh day, is a much 
greater privilege than it is apt to be regarded. 
It is a truth well established by experimental 
evidence, that, for the most perfect health of 
body and mind, and for the most successful 
continued labor, man as truly needs a weekly 
day of rest, as some hours of sleep every 
night. We do not say that the two are equaMjf 
necessary. Doubtless a man can live longer 
without Sabbath rest than without nightly 
sleep. But he cannot enjoy the most per- 
fect health without both; nor can he have; 
so cheerful, nor probably so long a life. 

This is evident from his own experience, 
to every thoughtful man accustomed to labor 
six days in the week. Is irot every such 
man conscious of increasing weariness as the 



4 BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 

week advances ? Does he not often feel that 
the draught upon his strength, made by the 
day's labor, is not quite made up by the 
night's repose? Does he not sometimes feel 
on Saturday evening as if he could not bear 
another day of toil? And after enjoying the 
Sabbath rest, does he not go to his work on 
Monday morning with a cheerfulness and 
a courage and a consciousness of renewed 
strength, such as he did not have on Saturday 
or Friday? This may not be the conscious 
experience of every week, but considering 
how often it is so, and considering what, at 
such times, would be the effect of continuing 
to labor on the Sabbath as on other days, 
we may well ask whether the system of the 
laborer would not run down without the Sab- 
bath, like a clock without winding up ? 

A stated day of rest, respected by general 
custom, and held sacred, is better for this 
purpose than occasional holidays to be taken 
by each man at his discretion. It would be 
always difficult, and often impossible for the 
poor laborer to get such holidays. In many 
establishments, the arrangements made with- 
out reference to any stated days of rest, would 
render it impossible for laborers to be spared. 



BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 5 

The fear of losing their places, and their 
natural reluctance to diminishing their earn- 
ings, would be always tempting them to hold 
on in continuous labor beyond the point of 
safe endurance. All the forces which, in such 
a case, would regulate employment and wages, 
would compel the poor to have as few holi- 
days as possible. When we have duly con- 
sidered all these things, we shall begin to see 
how kind and how efficient is the protection 
which God has given to the poor, in the in- 
stitution of the Sabbath. 

But they are not the poor only who are 
obliged to labor. They are not always the 
poorest who work hardest. Men who are accu- 
mulating wealth by successful business, and 
men who are distinguishing themselves in 
professional and public life, undergo more 
exhausting labor and are more familiar with 
depressing fatigue, than most of those who 
buy their daily food with the wages of their 
daily labor. How could you, men of business, 
do without the Sabbath ? Could the constant 
stretch of your faculties which the demands 
of business occasion, be endured week after 
week without intermission ? Do you know 
nothing of the experience already described, — 
l* 



6 BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 

that increasing weariness as the week ad- 
vances, that consciousness that the nightly 
rest is not enough for you, and that feeling 
on Saturday evening, that you have almost 
reached the limit of your capacity for exer- 
tion ? Worn and jaded as you sometimes 
are at the end of a week, could you hold 
right on for another and another without any 
respite? Would it not soon make you a 
helpless invalid or a miserable maniac? 

You, too, if left to find occasional holidays, 
would not be apt to find them often enough, 
nor when most needed. The pressure of com- 
petition, the urgency of customers kept away 
by no recognized usage, the sight and noise 
of business going on incessantly around you, 
the natural reluctance to sparing for rest time 
which would be as profitable as any for busi- 
ness, — all these things would tempt you to 
make your holidays as few as possible, and 
would make it impossible that any of them 
should yield you the undisturbed, refreshing 
repose, which is the rich gift of the Sabbath. 

How well is it for you that the paternal 
voice of God calls you every seventh day to 
cease from all your labors, and hushes the 
world about you to a friendly stillness, and 



BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 7 

gives you permission, retreating within the 
safe enclosures of your home and of His Sanc- 
tuary, to shut out ail the demands of business 
from your attention, and without discourtesy 
to forbid all the calls of business upon you. 

This matter has been tested by experiment. 
Mankind have not all had faith enough in 
the wisdom and goodness of their Maker to 
keep His commandments without trying the 
experiment whether they could prosper with- 
out a Sabbath. Some serious, observing, 
thinking persons, have carefully made large 
collections of facts from the experience of 
such people. Those facts show most con- 
clusively that both men and beasts actually 
do more work in a year, or any number of 
years, working only six days in each week, 
than if they work all the seven days. They 
also show that those who habitually labor on 
the Sabbath, the same as on other days, expe- 
rience the same decay of bodily vigor, the 
same gradual undermining of the physical 
constitution, and the same deterioration of the 
mental powers, as those who are habitually 
prevented from enjoying sufficient rest at 
night. 

Most evidently, He who made man, He 



8 BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 

by whose hands this bodily frame was so cu- 
riously wrought, and by whose skill this mar- 
vellous connection of our bodies and souls 
was established, instituted the Sabbath in view 
of what he so well knew of the wants of our 
nature. " The Sabbath was made for man" 

VALUABLE HABITS BMOMOTEH BY THE 
SABBATH. 

The Sabbath is friendly to some of the 
most useful habits. We name, as specimens, 
cleanliness, order, and punctuality. 

All well-informed physiologists assure us 
that sound health, serenity, cheerfulness of 
temper, and vigor of intellect are greatly de- 
pendent upon habitual bodily cleanliness. 
This physiological truth is of great practical 
importance. A clean skin and clean linen are 
capital preservers of health. Every scholar 
ought to know that without these he is never 
in a good state for successful study. Such 
cleanliness has also an important moral influ- 
ence. If you carefully study the ceremonial 
law of the Old Testament, and if you duly 
consider the figurative terms by which the 
Bible describes moral purity, you will be 
convinced that in the estimation of the Divine 



BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 9 

Author of that Book and that Kitual, there 
is no slight connection between bodily clean- 
liness and purity of mind. And if you are 
attentive to your own experiences, you will 
not fail to discover that it is easiest to keep 
the mind free from evil and open to good in- 
fluences when the body and its clothing are 
cleanest. Now a glance at any assembly of 
Sabbath worshippers will show that their ob- 
servance of the Sabbath strongly promotes 
this desirable habit. Those who frequent 
Christian sanctuaries always have enough of 
regard for the God who is there worshipped, 
or for the feelings of fellow- worshippers, or 
enough self-respect to take some pains to go 
there, and to see that their children go clean, 
and in clean, (though it may be cheap and 
homely), apparel. 

Order in the discharge of our duties and 
in the division of our time is greatly assisted 
by the Sabbath. It divides our time into 
periods of convenient length for the going 
through with many circles of duties. This 
is very manifest in respect to household duties. 
In good and orderly house-keeping, each day 
of the week has its appropriate labor. All 
housewives will probably agree that that 



10 BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 

necessary circle of labors could not well be 
completed in fewer days than six ; and all 
tidy and thrifty housewives will say that no 
one of these labors could well be intermitted 
for a longer time. But it is not so much 
that the week is of just the right length, 
as that without the Sabbath we should have 
no week at all. Each week is a definite 
period, having accurate limits, and separated 
from the period next to it by a sacred day, 
into which your week-day affairs may not be 
carried. You therefore require yourself to 
finish up those affairs within the prescribed 
period. In order that the week's work may 
be finished within the week, it is requisite 
that each day's duties be done within that 
day. This arrangement of time furnishes 
strong inducements and many facilities for 
bringing all kinds of business affairs to a 
frequent and periodical settlement. You try 
to keep your matters so adjusted that you can 
close them all up every Saturday night, and 
lay them by without damage. Orderly habits 
are much more easily maintained than they 
could be, if all the days ran on in an unbroken 
series, without any distinction between them. 
Punctuality is so closely allied to order 



BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 11 

that, if that is promoted by the Sabbath this 
cannot fail to be promoted also. Certainly 
the habit of planning to complete every 
week's work within the week, and in order to 
this to do each day's work within its day, can- 
not but be favorable to habits of punctuality. 
Though this is a rare virtue, it is a most im- 
portant one, and the guardian of many others. 
The man who is never late, who never keeps 
another waiting for him, who never delays 
nor interrupts proceedings at which he should 
be present by late attendance, shows genuine 
honesty, — honesty which as much disdains to 
pilfer time as money. If such a man should 
never accomplish any great thing, he at least 
may have the comfort of reflecting that he 
has not hindered others from accomplishing 
what they were able to do. Blessed be the 
man who is never waited for. It is no small 
thing that God, by his division of time into 
weeks, has given so much aid and encourage- 
ment to this important virtue. 

Having thus illustrated the tendency of the 
Sabbath to promote these good habits, I must 
satisfy myself with the suggestion that what 
is so favorable to these cannot fail to be favor- 
able to the whole family of virtues to which 



12 BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 

they belong. I have no doubt that the ob- 
servation of my readers, in whatever direction 
it may be extended, will justify the sugges- 
tion. When we see the Sabbath thus encour- 
aging and nourishing the virtuous habits on 
which the happiness of mankind is so depend- 
ent, must we not make a very high estimate 
of its value? 

SOCIAL ENJOYMENT. 

There is a kind of social enjoyment appro- 
priate to the Sabbath, and for which the Sab- 
bath affords the most favorable opportunities ; 
and it is the best and purest we can have in 
this world. I refer to that society which is 
found within the limits of the family circle. 
Consider how many heads of families can be 
at home very little except on the Sabbath. 
A mechanic, whose employment generally 
kept him away from home during the week, 
and who had lately suffered the severest of 
domestic bereavements, bewailed his widowed 
state in the following touching strain : — 

" A year ago, when Saturday came, I would 
be often counting the hours that must pass be- 
fore my week's work would be finished, and 
I could go home to my family. And when 



BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 13 

at length the happy hour came, I would gather 
up my tools and take my homeward way 
with a glad heart. My wife always welcomed 
me with an affectionate smile, and I was 
made comfortable and happy by her kind 
attentions. On the Sabbath morning she was 
always ready to go to church with me, and 
for fifteen years she stood up by my side in 
the choir, almost every Sabbath, and we sang 
the praises of God together. But now, when 
my week's work is finished, and I am ready 
to go home, I have to recollect that I have 
no home. I go to my boarding- place, and 
though the family show me every possible 
kindness, I still pass a lonely evening. On 
Sabbath-day I have to go to church alone, and 
stand up alone to sing. She is not by my 
side, and her voice does not mingle with 
mine/' 

This honest man's simple story touches 
our hearts. It is a pitiful sight to see a fel- 
low-man thus bereaved, a human home thus 
broken up. But for our support under such 
sorrow there are strong consolations provided. 
The Sabbath itself brings the most healing 
influences to hearts thus torn. From the 
Sanctuary God sends the most effectual help 



14 BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 

to such sufferers. So the afflicted man felt 
whose words have been cited. He sorrows 
not without hope nor without comfort. But 
if it be such an affliction to have customary 
Sabbath privileges thus interrupted, what a 
calamity would it be to the thousands of such 
men to have their Sabbath wholly taken from 
them! What a sorrowful abatement would 
it be from the happiness of such families, if 
there were no week's end at which the hus- 
band and father could come home to them, — 
no Sabbath which he could spend with 
them ! 

My readers are familiar with that beautiful 
poem of Burns, "The Cotter's Saturday 
Night." Could any thing on this earth fur- 
nish the scene for so lovely a picture, if there 
were no Sabbath? That poem truthfully 
describes the Saturday evening of many a 
Scottish cottage; and there is not more of 
poetic ardor than of sober truth in the poet's 
exclamation, — 

"From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs, 
That makes her loved at home, revered abroad." 

There are thousands of humble happy homes 
in our country in which the Saturday evening 



BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 15 

exhibits similar scenes, — where a happiness so 
serene, so pare, so heavenly, descends upon the 
gathered family. How many hearts turn, in 
later life, with fondest recollections, to the kind 
greetings, the cheerful converse, the warbling 
of sacred songs in harmony of heart and 
voice, the patriarchal counsels, and the fer- 
vent prayer of such Saturday evenings ! What 
would become of all this if we had no Sab- 
bath ? What have they of all this who ob- 
serve no Sabbath ? 

Here, as before, it is not only the poor who 
partake of the blessing. How little, except 
on Sabbaths, are business men with their fam- 
ilies ? Ye merchants and bankers, ye men 
of commerce and traffic, would not the very 
faces of your children grow strange to you, if 
you had not this one day in the week to be 
with them, enjoying such intercourse as best 
cultivates their affection for you, and impart- 
ing to them such lessons of instruction as are 
fitted to form them to a character of virtue 
and piety ? You perhaps have not the Satur- 
day evening for such enjoyment. That may 
be your most toilsome evening. It is to be 
regretted that the business customs of our 
time crowd so hard upon the confines of the 



16 BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 

Sabbath. But it is a great blessing that at 
least from the midnight hour preceding the 
Sabbath, you may say to the pressing tide of 
worldliness, " Thus far — no farther" Al- 
though you may retire weary and late on Sat- 
urday night, you wake on Sabbath morning 
with the pleasant consciousness of freedom. 
You feel that, on that day, no urgency of 
business may encroach upon your retirement. 
On that day you may have some hours to 
spend in the guarded quiet of home, in the 
society of your family, enjoying the purest 
and sweetest pleasures. We need this day of 
rest for the refreshment of our hearts as well 
as our bodies and our intellects — not more 
for the repose of our physical energies, than 
for the happiest exercise and culture and 
quiet growth of our choicest affections. 

MORAL INFLUENCE. 

We speak of the Sabbath, not merely as a 
day of rest from labor, not merely a holiday, 
but as a sacred day ; a day set apart pecu- 
liarly for the worship of God and the con- 
templation of divine things, and the system- 
atic communication of religious instruction, 
for reading the Holy Scriptures, and instruct- 



BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 17 

ing the young out of them, and preaching the 
Gospel. Incalculable is the influence which, 
by these means, the Sabbath sends forth 
upon the community, restraining men from 
crime, reclaiming them from vicious habits, 
keeping them from temptations to sensuality, 
prompting them to enterprises of public 
utility, correcting and elevating the public 
sentiment and improving and evangelizing 
the public spirit. It is plain, from the most 
common observation, that those places in which 
the Sabbath is not regarded, and in which there 
is no Sanctuary, are the places in which crime 
and vice most abound, and there is the least 
of virtuous order and virtuous sentiment. 
There the people are the most grovelling, and 
the most rude, and the most addicted to de- 
moralizing and debasing practices. Gener- 
ally speaking, it is to the men and women who 
frequent the Sanctuary, and religiously keep 
the Sabbath, that we must look, under God, 
to uphold the great interests of morality and 
virtue in any community. 

Says Chalmers : — " The suspension, on this 

day, of the labor and business of the world, 

its scrupulous retirement from the converse 

or the festivities of common intercourse, its 

2* 



18 BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 

solemn congregations, and its evening soli- 
tude — these singly and in themselves, may 
not be esteemed as moralities, and yet be en- 
titled to a high pre-eminence among them, 
from the impulse they give to that living 
fountain of piety, out of which the various 
moralities of life ever come forth in purest 
and most plenteous emanation. It is not that 
the virtue of man consists in these things, 
but that these things are devices of best and 
surest efficacy for upholding the virtue of 
man. * * * And you have only to compute 
the worth and the celestial character of all 
those graces which have been sheltered, and 
fed, and reared to maturity, in the bosom of 
this institution, that you may own the high 
bearing and dignity which belong to it." 

If there is any man who doubts the value 
of the Sabbath in this respect, we would pro- 
pose to him to go to some place where there 
is no Sanctuary, and where none of the people 
have any regard for the Sabbath, and after 
remaining long enough to learn the real char- 
acter of the people, and to ascertain the full 
amount of securities, of which he could there 
avail himself, for his property and life and 
personal rights, to come back and tell us 



BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 19 

whether he is disposed to make a home there 
for his family. Nay, there is not a place on 
earth, where there is no Sabbath, in which 
one of our readers would be willing to live. 
The Sabbath is indeed the great upholder of 
all those moral virtues which are essential to 
the peace and security and order of human 
society. 

OTOEt ETERNAL WELFAHE. 

The Sabbath has a prominent, a command- 
ing position in the system of agencies by 
which the salvation of human souls is secured. 
It is the truth that is preached in the Sanc- 
tuary, and for the devout contemplation of 
which the Sabbath affords the best opportu- 
nities, which God employs as the chief means 
of renewing and sanctifying the soul ; and it 
is upon the Sabbath in the Sanctuary, that 
the greatest numbers of God's people unite 
in those fervent supplications, in answer to 
which He sends down His saving influences 
most abundantly upon the hearts of men* 
With all our natural worldliness, all our 
readiness to forget God and disregard our 
eternal interests, if we were left in this 
world without any Sabbath, how few of us 



20 BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 

would ever be prepared for heaven ! This 
is immeasurably the most important of all 
the benefits of the Sabbath. For this espe- 
cially it is given to us, that we may have a 
good and favorable opportunity to hear the 
Gospel , and to consider its proposals, and to 
meditate on its sanctifying truth, and to en- 
joy its edifying ordinances, and so to "work 
out our salvation," God working in us with 
His efficient energy, by means of His ap- 
pointed and hallowed instrumentalities. 

The temporal interests upon which we have 
seen that the Sabbath exerts so favorable an 
influence, (though they be the most precious 
of temporal interests), are trifles in comparison 
with this, and except as they are subsidiary 
and preliminary to this. They are the inci- 
dental benefits which result from setting up, 
in the world, an institution, the chief purpose 
of which relates to eternity. So it is always. 
"Godliness is profitable unto all things, having 
promise of the life that now is and of that 
which is to come." Whatever tends to secure 
our eternal well-being, helps us to be happy 
here. Whatever helps the people of this 
world to prepare for a residence in heaven, 
fails not to bring down something of the 



BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 21 

I 

blessedness of heaven into this world. He 
who lay down to sleep where, in his dream, 
he saw a ladder set upon the earth, the top 
of which reached unto heaven, had the angels 
for visitors, and from above the ladder the 
voice of God came down to him promising 
the most abundant blessings to him and to 
his seed. So always they enjoy the best 
blessings which can be possessed in this world, 
w T ho dwell nearest to the sacred pathways 
which lead up to heaven. 

The Sabbath justly claims the regard due 
to an institution which, rightly used, will 
procure for us the best earthly blessings, 
and afford us the best opportunities for se- 
curing eternal happiness. 

Some practical reflections are naturally sug- 
gested by the view which we have taken of 
the benefits of the Sabbath. 

1. We have reason to give thanks continu- 
ally to God for an institution which He has 
made the vehicle for conveying to us so many 
of His choicest blessings, and to which He 
has given power to shed influences so benign 
upon human society. If we give thanks for 
peace and good order prevailing in our com- 
munities, we should remember the influence 



22 BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 

of the Sabbath in promoting them. If we 
acknowledge the goodness of God in securing 
abundant and steady rewards to honest labor, 
we should also thank Him for the refreshment 
and blessing of the day of rest, and that this 
rest is so extensively enjoyed by the poorest and 
the most laborious of our people. Grateful for 
civil and religious liberty, we should not for- 
get that the Sabbath is our liberty's principal 
safeguard ; that no people have long enjoyed 
stable and orderly liberty who were not en- 
lightened and sobered by Sabbath observance. 
And when we offer thanks for the infinite 
blessings of the Gospel, we cannot fail to 
praise God for that sacred day upon which we 
hear its glad sound unmingled with the din 
of this world's business, and whose guarded 
retirement and solemn services are so well 
suited to open our hearts to its tender and 
earnest appeals. Let us praise the Lord that 
He has instituted the Sabbath for the benefit 
of mankind, and that He has given us our 
descent from an ancestry upon which, for so 
many ages, the hallowed influences of the 
Sabbath have descended. 

2. The obligation to honor the Sabbath and 
faithfully to observe it, is made more plain 



BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 23 

by this consideration of its benefits. "Re- 
member the Sabbath day to keep it holy" The 
solemn commandment comes to us with aug- 
mented force, from the large experience which 
mankind have had of the value of the Sab- 
bath. The blessings which it will confer 
upon any people, must also be proportioned 
to the fidelity with which they keep it. Let 
us be careful not to let the business of the 
world encroach upon it, and let us endeavor 
to be always prepared for the devout contem- 
plations to which it invites, and to receive 
and improve the good influences of which it 
is the source. 

3. We cannot forget that a large number 
of our countrymen are cruelly deprived of 
Sabbath rest and Sabbath privileges. While 
Christians in the country walk or ride to their 
houses of worship on the pleasant summer 
Sabbaths, or quietly sit in their pews attend- 
ing to the Gospel, or enjoy Sabbath repose at 
home, they must know that on the canals, 
thousands of friendless boys, (some of them 
orphan sons of departed Christians), are plod- 
ding on in unrespited toil, toil that prema- 
turely wears out the body, and sadly debases 
the mind. On the great rivers, a numerous 



24 BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 

host of laborers are held in equally wretched 
servitude, slaves of a commerce which en- 
riches the country, and supplies us with abun- 
dant means of living in comfort and luxury, 
conducted on a system which assumes the 
moral degradation of its menials and effect- 
ually ensures it by making Sabbath privileges 
impossible. Directing and superintending 
these, and conducting the business of this 
immense navigation, are a great number of 
men higher in the intellectual and social scale, 
many of whom carry unquiet consciences until 
they get them benumbed and callous, obliged 
by this Sabbath-breaking system to choose 
between this violation of their consciences and 
the immediate loss of their only means of 
self-support, and too generally yielding to the 
temptation, to the conscious debasement of 
their manhood and the peril of their souls. 

In many cities, the new street-railway sys- 
tem employs a great number of drivers and 
conductors, whose situation is a monstrous 
anomaly. Kept on duty a greater number of 
hours than any other laborers, and required 
to work on Sabbaths as on other days, they 
get no respite from toil except the hours of 
nightly sleep. If a man in such employment 



BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 25 

be the father of a family, and if his little 
children have the amount of sleep which 
healthful childhood needs, he can never see 
them awake, unless it be while hastily snatch- 
ing his mid-day meal, if haply he can run to 
his home in the short time allotted to that. 
His children may outgrow their capacity for 
enjoying paternal fondling without ever having 
an opportunity to sit upon his knees. Mean- 
time his car may rumble by the doors of more 
than one Sanctuary, and halt for the accom- 
modation of their worshippers every Sabbath 
day, and he never •hear a sermon, or a psalm, 
or a prayer. 

There are other classes, whose business as 
it is conducted in many branches, and usages 
of society which we too thoughtlessly permit 
to prevail, and legislation unworthy of a 
Christian nation, compel to forego the rest 
and the benefits of the Sabbath. Society can- 
not thus rob a part of its members of their 
most sacred privileges, and constrain them 
to such moral debasement without suffering 
in all its interests. One of our most pros- 
perous and eminent merchants of New York, 
a director of one of the longest and most 
important railroads in our country, endeavor- 



26 BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 

ing to persuade his fellow-directors to let their 
road rest on Sunday, made this shrewd re- 
mark to them, " If you will compel your con- 
ductors to break the fourth commandment, 
you have no right to expect that they will 
keep the eighth." He did not, we presume, 
mean to affirm that every man who will work 
on Sunday will steal ; but doubtless he did 
mean, that a company whose arrangements 
exclude from their employ all men of first- 
class consciences, must expect to find a large 
per-centage of its employees not very scrupu- 
lous in handling its money. Doubtless this 
is true. That director made a just and ra- 
tional estimate of the pecuniary hazard of 
disregarding God's commandment, which 
doubtless he would keep irrespective of such 
considerations. In like manner, everywhere 
and in all relations, important interests are 
imperilled, and corruption and moral depra- 
vation are induced by arrangements which 
constrain men to violate the Sabbath. 

Our national Government is yet far from 
setting a worthy example in this respect. A 
numerous class of its most loyal and law- 
abiding citizens are excluded from employ- 
ment in some of the most important branches 



BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 27 

of the public service, because they could not 
hold such places without working on the Sab- 
bath. By this means, the probabilities are 
increased, that such trusts will fall into the 
hands of unscrupulous men, and the influence 
of the Government is brought to bear directly 
upon young men to diminish their conscien- 
tiousness, and thus to corrupt and destroy them. 
"What harm or loss could result from the en- 
tire stopping of the mails and closing of the 
Post Offices during the hours of the Sabbath, 
at all comparable with the harm and loss of 
making Post Office employment a grand cor- 
rupter of young men's consciences, and a grand 
weakener of the divine safeguard of public 
virtue ? When transportation is so easy and 
swift, and the transmission of important in- 
telligence can be effected instantaneously, can 
we not agree to let the multitude of men em- 
ployed in this department of public service, 
enjoy the rest of the Sabbath ? Do we not 
want a Sabbath blessing upon our common 
medium of social and commercial intercom- 
munication ? May w r e not hope, by vigorous, 
continuous, and candid discussion, to bring 
this American people to see that only by being 



28 BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 

a Sabbath-keeping people can they secure the 
blessing which they most highly prize? 

God grant that the time may come when 
the Sabbath will be universally regarded ; 
when from its dawn to its close no government 
office will be open, nor any public business 
transacted ; when no Congress will ever let 
the work of legislation encroach upon its 
sacred hours; when every railroad depot will 
be silent ; every locomotive motionless ; every 
steamboat moored, and its cabin or deck made 
a Sanctuary ; when every laborer will have 
his right to the weekly season of rest secured 
to him; when every inhabitant of our wide 
and populous land will dwell within hearing 
of a Sabbath bell, and be disposed to accept 
its significant invitation ; when from free and 
enlightened pulpits the Word of God shall 
be proclaimed in its purity to all the people, 
and all the hallowed influences of the Sab- 
bath shall be exerted in every dwelling, upon 
the hearts of every family. Then shall we 
be a truly happy people. Then shall we 
"delight ourselves in the Lord, and He will 
cause us to ride upon the high places of 
the earth, and feed us with the heritage of 



BENEFITS OF THE SABBATH. 29 

Jacob," — even the rich heritage of His ever- 
lasting covenant. Then "God, even our 
own God, shall bless us. God shall bless 
us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear 
Him." 



THE END, 



PRESBYTERIAN BOOK-STORE, 

1334 Chestnut Street, 

OPPOSITE THE TJ. S. MINT. 



NEW BOOKS. 

January, 1867. 

WALKS AND HOMES OF JESUS. 

By Rev. Daniel March, D.D. 339 pp., 12mo. 20 Illustrations. Bound in 

Muslin. On tinted paper. Beveled boards, gilt edges, and side stamp $2 5( 

JOITTCH TILES ; or, Loving Words about the Saviour. 

171 pp., small 12mo. Nineteen Illustrations. New Edition. On tinted paper. 
Beveled boards, gilt edges, and side stamp 2 0( 

Por Sabbath Schools and the Household. 

ENGLAND TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO. 

By E. H. Gillet, D.D., author of "Lite and Times of John Huss," "History 
of Presbyterian Church." " Lite Lessons," &c. 363 pp., 16mo. Five illust's. jH 
A Sketch of the time of Charles II. of England. "In every sense a good 
book." — American Presbyterian. 

ONLY IN FUN; or, The Teasing Boy. 

By the author of "Money," " Far Away," " Discontented Girl," &c. 

158 pp., 18mo. Three illustrations 

ALLAN'S FAULT. 

By the author of " Brookside Farm-house," " Annandale," &c., &c. 

412 pp., 16mo. Five illustrations 1 

Allau's fault was heedlessness. The book is one of unusual merit and interest. 

MAY CASTLETON'S 31ISSION; or, Charity Suffereth Long 
and is Kind. 

228 pp., 18mo. Four illustrations 

ROSE DELANY'S SECRET; or, Charity Envieth Not. 

By the same author. 216 pp., 18mo. Three illustrations 

DL1MOND CROSS; or, Charity Yaunteth Not Itself; is not 
puffed up. 

By the same author. 222 pp., 18mo. Three illustrations 7 

DIAMOND CROSS SERIES, 

Consisting of the last three books ; n a neat box 2 

FLOWERS IN THE GRASS. 

By the author of " Piety and Pride," " What to 1 >." &c. 

214 pp. , 18mo. Four illustrations 

OUT AT SEA. 

208 pp., 18mo. Six illustrations 

Life at Sea, with its sights and sounds, its though 1 and lessons, gracefully 
depicted from the incidents of a voyage from Am rica to Ceylon. 

ANNA CLAYTON; or. The Inquirer after Vruth. 

By the Rev. F. M. Dimmick. 427 pp. 12mo 1 

A thorough discussion of questions involved in th Baptist Controversy, 
developed in a highly interesting narrative. 



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